From: Tom Cowper (tcowper@capital.net)
Date: Mon Apr 29 2002 - 21:35:47 MDT
Well, I'm gonna have to disagree with Eliezer. I think both participants
held their own quite well, though if I had to pick a better debater I'd pick
Ray everyday of the week and twice on Sunday. Eliezer knows the issues so
well I think he may be reading more into the debate than what actually was
said. OTOH, maybe I don't know the issues well enough and I missed the
subtle falacies in Ray's argument, but it seems to me that these kinds of
constrained and restricted dialogs - on stage, under a time constraint,
responding to one another's specific comments and not necessarily expounding
complete and completely accurate scientific explanations, trying to respond
to as many questions from the audiance as possible within a very limited
timeframe - it becomes rather difficult to judge someone's whole vision or
thought process on as complex a subject as AI vs. genetic engineering vs.
cyborgery in that kind of chaotic situation. Far from "sad" in my opinion.
I thought it very constructive dialog and a great debate.
Tom
On 29 Apr 2002 at 19:16, Samantha Atkins wrote:
> Thanks for the replay of this discussion. I just wish I could
> have been there for it. Although I was signed and paid up I am
> still not over this nasty all-so-biological bug that bit me just over
> 2 weeks ago. It seems to hang on for 3 weeks in most people. So I
> got halfway to the meeting on Saturday and felt so bad I decided I
> really should go home and sleep most of the day Saturday and Sunday.
>
> Experiences like that sure make be more gung-ho for uploads and
> medical nanotech!
>
> It is an interesting twiste in the debate when both agree that
> the AIs will march forward regardless and the debate turns on
> wheter we will at least get augmentation out of it. Whilte that might
> leave us "behind the machines" it certainly doesn't mean that
> biological advances will be "most" important. The question is not
> well-defined to start with as it doesn't nail down the context of
> "important" - important in the number and scope of overall advances of
> originally earth-based intelligences or most import to us "orgas"?
> If it is the first then there is probably much less question for many
> of us here that AIs will far outstrip in terms of cognitive power and
> number of advances in knowledge those who were once organic. If it is
> the second then I would still argue that non-bioenginnering
> technological improvements including medical nanotech and augmentation
> will do more to increase our range and accomplishments than more
> purely biological advances will. I don't see how Kurzweil could
> lose.
>
> - samantha
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